


a tree amid the wood

by girlmarauders



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Ghost Trees, M/M, Magical Realism, Remix, Trees
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 07:03:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17741171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlmarauders/pseuds/girlmarauders
Summary: Trees start visiting Zach and Ryan.





	a tree amid the wood

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [[Podfic] a tree by any other name](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10847022) by [frecklebombfic (frecklebomb)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/frecklebomb/pseuds/frecklebombfic). 



> this was written as an example for [Remixapod 2019](https://remixapod.dreamwidth.org)
> 
> thank you to frecklebomb fic for letting me remix this amazing podfic, and to bestliars for letting us make this remix of a podfic of a remix!
> 
> title from the tree by ezra pound

Zach started hearing things in the winter, in their backyard. The snow had been on the ground for weeks, thawing and refreezing in streaks over his grass, and he’d let the dog out to run around and nose at the snow. He wasn’t really paying attention, kinda zoning out, when something rustled near his ear and he flinched hard, instinctively. Maybe it was a bug or something, because when he turned around he couldn’t see anything. Weird.

He shivered and whistled for the dog, who came running, and he went into the house.

“Are there bugs in Minnesota in the winter?” he asked Ryan in the kitchen.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Ryan asked. He also wasn’t paying attention; he was lifting a steak off the griddle with tongs, but he turned around when he put it on some paper towels.

“Nothing,” Zach said, and went to kiss him. Ryan let him, but made a muffled annoyed sound, as if he didn’t like it.

“Get off, I’m making your goddamn dinner,” he said, and Zach kissed him harder, and wrapped his arms around him, tucking his hands up under Ryan’s shirt. “Ah! God, your hands are cold,” Ryan said, squirming.

“It’s cold outside,” Zach said, like Ryan was stupid, and Ryan pushed him off.

“Go get some plates, I’m not your hand-warmer,” he said, and shoved at Zach’s shoulder, but only gently. He kissed Ryan’s neck one last time, and then went to get the plates from the cupboard. They had dinner, Ryan bitching about Zach making him cook and Zach pretending not to like it to annoy him, and then they watched a game, tapping around on their phones, until they were tired enough to go to sleep. A good day off, altogether.

Zach woke up in the middle of the night to piss. He had to go across the hall to the bathroom, and he stopped in the hall, still half-asleep. He rubbed his eyes. There was a shadow that wasn’t normally there, making the light fall differently than he was used. His brain couldn’t figure out what it was, and he was too tired to deal with this. He went to piss, washed his hands, looked blearily at himself in the mirror, and then went back to bed, passing the tree in the hall. He fell asleep, as soon as his head hit the pillow, listening to Ryan breathe slowly next to him.

He probably would have gone on with his life without thinking the sound, and the dream tree in the hall were related at all but Ryan shook him awake the next morning.

“Zach, Zach wake up,” he was saying, and Zach tried to sit up groggily, batting weakly at Ryan’s hands to make the shaking stop.

“Huh?” he said, and Ryan looked at him, and then pointed to the foot of their bed.

“Holy shit,” Zach said, very quickly awake. Their bedroom was full of trees. Like, full of trees, absolutely packed to the walls with tree trunks, their branches pressed against the ceiling, basically a forest. “What the hell,” he said. The clock on Ryan’s bedside table said it was nearly ten, but the room was still nearly dark, the trees blocking the window. It was noisier than Zach thought trees were supposed to be, rustling leaves, and the strange creaking sound of wood bending. They were so tightly packed the light seemed to come through them in bands, as if from far away

“Zach what did you do?” Ryan asked, quietly, and Zach turned to him.

“What do you mean what did I do? I didn’t do anything!” he said, aggrieved, and Ryan waved his hands like he could get Zach to be quiet.

“Shhhh!” he said, and Zach stared at him. “Be quiet!” Ryan hissed.

“Why are we whispering?” Zach asked in a stage whisper. “They’re trees!”

Ryan made a face. They were both thinking that they weren’t normal trees, they were magic trees, but neither of them wanted to say the word magic. Zach could see it in Ryan’s face.

“Oh for christ sake,” Ryan said eventually, and then he rolled out of bed and stood up. He wasn’t trying to hit one of the trees, but they were so closely packed that Ryan’s foot went right through one like it was air. There was a split second where they were both looking at Ryan’s bare leg, straight through the fucking _ghost tree_ , and then, in the blink of an eye, the forest was gone.

Ryan sat down suddenly on the bed.

“What the fuck,” he said.

“You said it,” Zach said, for want of anything better to say.

There was nothing to do about it really. They took turns in the shower, the other brushing their teeth or hanging out in the bathroom on their phone, neither of them wanting to be alone. Zach ate toast in the kitchen, watching Ryan feed the dog, and then they went to practice.

Zach eventually cracked in the car, not able to hold it back any more.

“What the fuck happened?” he said. Ryan didn’t turn to look at him because he was watching the road.

“How the hell do I know?” Ryan said, but he didn’t sound mad, he sounded just as freaked out as Zach felt, which was good. It helped to know Ryan was here with him. “Did you invite any ghost trees over and not tell me?”

Zach spluttered.

“Did I - ghost trees - what?” he said, and Ryan shrugged.

“Do you know what they were? No. Ghost trees,” he said, and Zach didn’t know if he was being a dick on purpose or because he was freaked out.

“Okay, fine, ghost trees,” he said, putting his hands up. They were nearly at the rink. It was stupid to fight about it. When Ryan parked, Zach reached for his hand.

“Hey,” he said, quietly, and he thought he heard the same tree noises from the morning, but it was probably just the trees around the parking lot in the freezing Minnesota wind. Ryan took his hand, and his fingers were warm. Ryan always ran hot. He sighed.

“Let’s go skate,” Ryan said, and Zach smiled at him. No ghost trees were going to hold them back.

The rink was full of fucking ghost trees. They didn’t see them at first because the players entrance didn’t go past the ice, so they got in all their gear in blissful ignorance, and then Ryan walked out ahead of him and stopped suddenly. Zach walked right the fuck into him, because he’d ben talking to Eric about Eric’s kid’s new favorite thing (a song about sharks? Zach didn’t get it).

“Hey pylon, look alive” he said, and Ryan swore and shoved at him.

“Look, you dumbass,” he said, and Zach looked at the ice.

“Oh fuck me,” he said. There were all the fucking trees again, making a racket, creaking and rustling, and waving their fucking, tree arms around. They didn’t look like ghosts. They looked like real, solid trees, with roots that reached through the ice. Zach knew it was just concrete under there, but he could imagine the trees had dug under the layers of the rink and found fresh dirt, somewhere, far down in the earth.

“What on earth?” Eric said, leaning over Zach’s shoulder. There were a couple of other guys in the hallway, and they were starting to make noise at the hold up.

“You’re seeing this?” Zach said, looking at Eric. He nodded. Well, at least he and Ryan weren’t losing their minds alone. That was something.

Ryan clomped the last few steps to the glass and knocked his glove against it.

“Hey!” he said, pretty loudly. “Shoo! Go away! This isn't your rink!”

Eric watched this peaceably, but Mikko wasn't nearly as patient, and bumped Zach's elbow.

“Why is your boyfriend shouting at the trees?” he said, in his slow accent.

“I dunno man,” Zach said. “I think he wants them to go away.”

Ryan waved at the trees again, which rustled loudly, and did not disappear. A few of them creaked loudly. It sounded almost like they disapproved. He stepped over to lean over Ryan's shoulder.

“Last time they went away when you touched them,” he said. Ryan pushed his helmet up his forehead and looked at Zach incredulously.

“I'm not going out there,” he said. “You do it.”

“Okay, fine,” Zach said, trying to sound braver than he felt. There was a little clear area of ice, so when Zach opened the door he could step out. He knew they weren't real, and he'd seen Ryan's leg go through right through one, but they looked real. Up close he could see the bark of their trunks, the individual leaves of their branches. He could see where their roots had cracked and lifted the ice. Every muscle in his body was crying out at him not to skate directly into a tree.

He took a deep breath. Fuck this shit. He pushed off and skated out on a collision course, and then, between one blink and the next, the trees were gone, the rink restored to glacial smoothness.

He heard the collective intact of breath from the team, and he turned, looking back at them, at Ryan’s face peering through the glass, looking pale and scrunched.

“Well?” he said. “They’re gone now.”

What else was there to do? The forest was gone, and they were all dressed up. They had practice as normal, and Zach only looked over his shoulder a couple times, thinking he heard the rustling of leaves.

The trees became a persistent problem, both unsettling and annoying. They saw them six more times, in the hotel room on the road, and on the ice, in the garage before they drove to practice. Every time they disappeared when someone tried to touch them, and until then would wait, as if they knew something would happen soon.

Neither of them really got used to it. Zach kept thinking he knew when the forest would appear, and then would be surprised when they did appear. Ryan hated it. He pretended he didn’t, because he didn’t want to admit they creeped him out, but Zach could tell. Ryan waited longer and longer to leave rooms, and casually but noticeably followed Zach around the house when they were home together.

Slowly the winter turned to spring. They were on track for a play-off spot, although the West was still a mess, and Zach was trying not to take anything for granted.

He woke up in the middle of the night with a start, not sure why, blinking at the ceiling. Ryan breathed slowly next to him, a warm presence in Zach’s bed. Distantly, Zach heard the now-familiar sound of the forest, the soft ambient sounds of trees. He blinked at the ceiling for a few more moments, wondering if he could just wait the trees out and go back to sleep.

He sighed. He couldn’t. If he left them, Ryan would wake up in the morning and find them, and they were playing tomorrow. He didn’t want Ryan to be rattled, not when Zach could make it easier for him. Gently, trying not to wake Ryan, he rolled out of bed and padded out into the hall, rubbing his eyes. He could hear the forest, but he couldn’t he see them. He looked in the spare room, technically Ryan’s, full of their hockey memorabilia, and the bathroom, the kitchen, and found nothing. Finally, he looked in the living room and saw them through the glass of the back door, waiting in the dark backyard.

One of Ryan’s old hoodies was on the back of the sofa so Zach pulled it on and stepped out onto the back patio. It was chilly, but fine, and he dropped to sit on one of their old patio chairs. It wasn't light yet, just the grey tinge of morning at the edge of the sky, and the trees were a black shadow across the backyard, moving slightly in a non-existent breeze.

“You know,” he said, “I would really appreciate if you would quit this bullshit.”

He was talking to trees, but this was the place he'd reached.

“I think you probably want something,” he said, because he'd been thinking about it, and it was the only explanation that made any kind of twisted sense. “I mean, I thought that was the point of ghosts, right, that they want something. But I've got no fucking clue how Ryan and I are supposed to figure that out, when you can't talk, and also we have to make the playoffs, so you know we're kinda busy.”

He paused, and ran his hand through his hair. It was getting colder.

“Also, no offense, but you're kind of super creepy and it's freaking Ryan out,” he said, and then sighed. What did the trees care that his boyfriend was nervous all the time now, and there was nothing Zach could do about it.

He propped his chin on his hand, leaning on his knee.

“I just want Ryan to feel okay, and not be worrying about you guys all the time,” he said. The trees didn’t say anything, just stayed trees, but they were never going to say anything, or tell him to stop being ridiculous, like Ryan did sometimes when he didn’t want to talk about whatever Zach was asking him about. They were just trees, just the forest that was haunting them. “He came all the way to Minnesota for me, you know?” he said. “I just want it to be worth it for him.” He paused, against the surge of emotion. It was late, and dark, and all he could hear were the trees. Everything he felt was rising to the surface, like leaves pulled under a current bobbing to the surface. “I just want to be worth it,” he said.

“Zach?” Ryan said sleepily, from behind him. Zach jumped, and turned, feeling guilty and caught, even though he wasn’t doing anything. Ryan was just in his boxers, rubbing at his eyes, standing in the open doorway. “Why are you outside?”

“I was just..” Zach turned back to the yard, but it was empty now, just their normal flat yard, not a single strange tree in sight. “..talking to myself.”

Ryan shivered, and rubbed his arms.

“Come inside,” he said, and Zach followed him into the house, closing the door behind him. When he puts his arms around Ryan, he was warm, and smelled like the soft, comforting smell of sleep.

“I heard what you said,” Ryan said gently, his voice a little rough from just having woken up. Zach stiffened, but Ryan didn’t let go of him, and Zach didn’t want to pull away. Ryan didn’t say anything for a moment, and all the worst possible options ran through Zach’s head, Ryan was about to say it wasn’t worth it ,he hated Minnesota, he wished he’d stayed in Nashville where it was warmer and the food was better and there weren’t any ghost trees, but he just breathed out slowly and leaned out of the hug to look at Zach’s face

“It’s worth it, you know,” he said slowly. “Being here.”

Zach nodded, and swallowed the knot in his throat.

“Yeah,” he said, hoarsely, and Ryan smiled. They went back to bed without saying anything more, and Zach fell asleep pressed against Ryan’s back, warm.

They never saw the forest again. 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] a tree amid the wood](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19463662) by [frecklebombfic (frecklebomb)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/frecklebomb/pseuds/frecklebombfic)




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